The French have just confirmed their political creativity. In other Western democracies, a presidential election leads to the clear-cut victory of one candidate over another, along with the endorsement of a more or less predictable program. Not so in France. On April 22, the elections’ first round, French voters were free to choose from among ten contenders, including Trotskyists, radical ecologists, and a representative of America’s Lyndon Larouche cult. In the second round, concluded Sunday among the two remaining challengers, voters rejected incumbent president Nicolas Sarkozy in favor of Socialist François Hollande. Now Hollande, the nation’s new president, faces a much less forgiving “electorate”: the financial markets, which will determine whether he can save France from a Greek scenario of default and bankruptcy.